The So-Called Online Internet Primary in Oregon

Right now there’s a lot of hype, hoopla and hyperventilating about the nominating process of one of Oregon’s minor parties, the “Independent Party.” Party leaders called it a “primary” and the media has followed suit.

Political commentators and executives from the private company that conducted the tally using proprietary software are all breathlessly predicting that this is the future of voting and pointing to scattered examples where online voting has been used elsewhere, not always with complete success (that’s the subject of another post, which I’ve partially addressed in a discussion about Hawaii’s low-turnout experiment in 2008).

What actually transpired was more like an online convention, but without the glad-handing by politicians and after-hours socializing — in other words, it was not a lot of fun for most people, which may help explain the extremely low participation rate of 4 per cent by the 57,000 or so voters registered as members of the Independent Party. Those who chose to participate in the online nominating process were required to complete the ballot in one session, all the while wrestling with an unfamiliar website – a tough challenge for all but the most computer-savvy and committed voters.

It is important to note that the online voting procedure used by the Independent Party to select it’s nominees is not in conformance with Oregon elections law regarding primary elections.

First of all, Oregon law is specific about the date of primary elections (third Tuesday in May in even-numbered years) – and the filing deadline for candidates (in mid-March two months before Primary). Furthermore, the voter registration deadline is 20 days before the primary. Except in the case of military and overseas voters, ballots are sent out 18-19 days before election day. Voters and candidates plan for this schedule and know when the deadlines are and what to expect.

The Independent Party created their own very different schedule, leaving many voters confused and candidates scrambling. This fact alone may help account for the less-than-stellar participation rate of four per cent.

The equipment and software used for counting votes in Oregon elections is required to be certified by the Secretary of State – it is publicly tested before each election to see that it performs correctly. On the other hand, the software used in the online process of the Independent Party is neither certified nor publicly tested. Everyone involved – Independent Party voters, the general public and candidates – is forced to rely only on the assurances of Every One Counts, the private company that was contracted to conduct the online election, about the accuracy of the vote count. There is no way to recount the electronic votes and no way an outside observer can tell whether the reported vote tally actually reflects the will of the voters.

Speaking of recounts, Oregon law is pretty specific about those, also. If the top two candidates are separated by 1/5 of one per cent or less (and this frequently happens in contested primaries in Oregon), then an automatic hand recount is required. In the case of this online “primary”, there’s no paper so there’s nothing to recount, naturally. How can you say that this online voting process is so wonderful if you cannot recount it?

I say enough!

Enough already with relying on the assurances of private companies that everything’s just hunky-dory! We’ve seen it again and again that private companies cannot be trusted to act in behalf of the public good – just remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Massey coal mine disaster, BP spill in the Gulf, toxic toys imported from China, shoddy electrical work by Halliburton killing troops in Iraq – the list is long and growing longer every day.

Why should we trust the most sacred transaction of our democracy, the vote, to private companies who are only motivated by profits and whose only loyalty is to their shareholders, not the public good?

We should approach the assurances of private corporations that they are doing a great job with the same attitude that characterized our relations with the Soviet Union during disarmament negotiations: Trust, but verify.

If we cannot verify and recount the election results, then we cannot trust them. Online voting does not meet this basic standard for elections in a democracy.

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Nice analysis of the most critical piece of this convoluted “primary” Candidates already nominated by their Parties were faced w/a no-win situation of scrambling for the IPO “nomination” under a litany of questionable variables.

Now, constituencies with more than 20k voters will see “IND” inscribed on the ballot alongside candidates who may have received a whooping 7 votes. The IPO is happily flush w/ press, trumpeting their new found influence. Sadly, they are not wrong. No one braked the train or operated the switches and this trainwreck is now an integral part of the 2010 Oregon Election.

Hmmm-interesting doomsday scenario–especially since back in June of this year, this same commentator (Chair of Multnomah Cty Democrats) boasted on BlueOregon the she had “demanded” and forced this precise historic first ever e-vote primary as some kind of public spirited effort for ” the best interest of democratic process” and the Independent Party members. (Of course that claim was false as I personally began soliciting proposals for e-vote in April–but why bring up actual facts from someone who knows something?)

Here’s what she said on June 3:

“While the IPO clearly infers that the 5 member nomination board is sufficient for the third largest Oregon Party, the DPO reasonably questions if this is adequate representation of IPO Party rank and file, and formalized it’s request for the SOS to intervene. In essence, while the Dems may be challenging the processes proposed by the leadership of the IPO, the DPO is actually taking action which would benefit rank and file IPO Party membership. Ironically, if the IPO was allowed to nominate (co-nominate) candidates at the behest of only its leadership, it is highly possible that the leadership would make more liberal selections than would the rank and file members. The more conservative selections that could be made by a full membership vote hardly would be in the best interests of the Democratic Party, but definitely in the best interest of democratic process.”

Now, this process she “wanted” is “train wreck” (and worse, as she more colorfully describes it on BlueOregon now as “steaming piles of excrement.”) She apparently did not want some of us (an old lefty like me)
making the decisions. Well, Carla got just what she “wanted” and now she thinks it’s a hot mess. She was right the first time–really it IS in the best interests of the democratic process.

No wonder so many Independent Party voters and nonaffiliated voters left the major parties and their political operatives who will say anything, no matter how inconsistent. to spin a result.

I am chair of the Independent Party of Oregon. I have some responses to your comments which are somewhat off-the-mark, since you seem to think that Oregon minor political parties should follow the law relating to major party primaries even though Oregon law specifically (1) privileges the Republican and Democratic parties with taxpayer subsidies and state-sponsored primaries from which minor parties are excluded, and (2) has entirely different standards applicable to minor party nominations.

Without any state support whatsoever, minor political parties in Oregon traditionally hold nominating conventions (in person) in the summer. Needless to say, without any funds, the conventions are not widely publicized, present great barriers of time and travel for attendence and are actually attended by several dozens of people. (I won’t go into the specifics of law which force minor parties to hold these conventions in the summer, but there are time frames set by law.)

There a great structural barriers for minor parties–money, for one-and the opposition of those who like the status quo of major party dominence of the political and civic dialogue.

If the Independent Party had the funds we would have conducted a multi-platform election (phone keypad entry, print-out barcoded ballots) but without state support we held the first ever e-vote binding primary in the United States, the first ever Oregon minor party primary, and the largest minor party event in the history of the state (2300 participants).

We all share your concerns about transparancy, audit trails and security for e-voting, and for any election system,including Oregon’s vote-by-mail. Help us figure out how to meet those concerns and yet reach thousands of minor party voters and bring them into the system.

Are you willing to lobby for state support to minor political parties?

We all share your concerns about transparancy, audit trails and security for e-voting, and for any election system,including Oregon’s vote-by-mail

If you at the “Independent” Party had really really cared about transparency, audit trails and security, you would not be foisting this travesty on any voters, especially those in Oregon who are accustomed to paper ballots, recountable elections and one of the highest voter participation rates in the nation. Stop calling it a “primary” and call it like it is: a secret, non-transparent, insecure process that had a record lack of participation by Oregonians. BTW, open source software that works with generic scanners is available for use if you wanted to actually do more to align your party’s process with the values you claim to espouse.

Dude, isn’t your response a tiny bit over-reacting to my comments that you clearly misunderstand the applicable law in Oregon? Your discussion of the law is wrong and and irrelevant to minor party participation so you ingore your errors and switch to accusatory mode.

My mistake, thought you might have something constructive to say, but you just want to do the bluebanshee shtick–howl about how terrible anything is that does not benefit “your” side.

Fact–Printing and mailing the 60 different ballots (small print jobs) would have cost about 3x more than the e-vote. Your comment about “open source” software and alternatives shows (1) you have no idea what kind of security is required, and (2) you would have preferred that the same people you “blues” excoriate as crooks, Naderites, purveyors of “travesty,” run all of the security preparations instead of hiring the leading e-vote vendor in the nation.

It’s easy to bandy around tech terms, but the fact is that open source and Drupal add-ons would not be “secure.”

Oregon’s vote vote-by-mail system and audit trails are also fragile and insecure– highly susceptible to undue influence and outright fraud. As imperfect as any computer based system is, Everyone Counts has done the 2008 elections for over 20 states for military and overseas citizens and numerous other democratic elections worldwide (30 countries).

The Independent Party folks all learned a lot and will continue to innovate and have constructive things to contribuute about minor parties, e-voting and civic dialogue.

And just remind us of your credentials in the areas of useful critique, tech support, international voting systems, internet security and Oregon law?

You are leaping to conclusions and accusing me of things I have not done, e.g., calling you and other leaders of the IPO “crooks, Naderites, purveyors of ‘travesty.'” What I did do is call into question your commitment to transparent, recountable, secure elections. I also pointed out that the process chosen by the IPO for their nominating process is not the same as the one described by Oregon law as a primary. Yes, I know that minor parties in Oregon may use any nominating process they like but it is a travesty to claim that what the IPO is doing bears even the slightest resemblance to a primary as described in Oregon law. There is no comparison! Apples and oranges!

And don’t give me the E1C corporate spin that other states choose to contract with them for UOCAVA voters. Many (if not most) of these states have paperless DREs, too. These states are used to unrecountable electronic voting so really don’t see any difference between DREs at polling places or online voting. Not so in Oregon. Don’t give me the bandwagon argument so popular with whining teenagers: “Everyone else is going to that party — why can’t I go, too!”

My answer: Would you jump off a cliff if all your friends did? Because that is what joining the stampede to online voting really is — jumping off a cliff into an abyss of privately owned, proprietary software that is non-recountable, non-transparent and inherently insecure since it relies on today’s hackable, virus-prone, scam-rich internet.

I would not be opposed to leveling the playing field for minor party participation in Oregon’s primary for those parties that meet a minimum threshold (as is done in other states). However, I still do object to calling the current process adopted by the IPO a “primary”. since it differs in so many fundamental ways from the primary process as understood by Oregon voters. That was the entire point of my blog post, which you still have not addressed.

BB – The fact is, we developed a voting system that would have implemented a verifiable paper trail. In the end, we chose to spend a significant amount of money to use an elections vendor that conducts secure internet-based elections for the US military because of concerns over liability and accusations by those who sought to derail our process.

Did you consult the Open Voting Consortium? They have developed Open Source software that might have enabled you to count the ballots more transparently. There are a couple of other groups that offer options. You did not really have to limit yourselves to a choice between a private for-profit vendor and something you developed yourself. There are other choices out there if you had cared to pursue them.

Incidentally, it is not the DOD that uses E1C as a vendor — it is other states who choose to use E1C for their UOCAVA voters.

There is indeed an inconsistency between minor and major party nomination process that should be addressed, and I actually agree that primaries should be uniform. But the Association of County Clerks, rather than conducting primaries for all parties, would push the other direction – i.e., they would much rather parties determine their nominees on their own: yes, even the Democratic Party and the GOP.

This would be a horrific “solution” to the inconsistencies in Primary process, essentially disenfranchising voters who don’t have the wear-with-all to attend party caucuses. Further, I would hate to see the OCC advocate change that forced the hand of parties to attempt similar “online” primaries.

If the primary process were to be transformed in a way that still accommodated all Oregon voters and adopted a consistant for all parties, the give and take necessary would put the smaller parties under the onus of a higher bar – perhaps more voters registered and more demands in terms of Party ByLaws and structure would be required.

This is where we segway into the legitimacy of a party, and this is where the IPO meets it’s biggest challenge:

IPO leaders may be clear as to the objectives of the IPO, but there is a huge disconnect between Party objectives as delinated in IPO Bylaws (e.g. Election reform, et. al.) and Party voters. This is born out by the results of the elections – the 4% of your voters were all over the map in terms of who they supported, and often “None of the Above” was the hands down winner.

Your voters supported hardline, anti-tax conservatives and pro-GLBT liberals. There was absolutely no consistency in results, which indicates that more than anything else that the only constant theme among Party rank and file is that they “don’t like that other guy,” OR had no idea who the other guy was so voted for “none of the above”

Its critical for IPO leaders to address the elephant in the room for the IPO. Your 54k are not a Party dedicated to progressive values and change but a group of variably disgruntled voters.

Your choice is to either recognize the latter and build on that honestly, or transform the party into your original progressive vision and risk alienating a good number of current IPO members.

Thank you for the more thoughtful comments. In every challenge there is opportunity. There is growing dissatisfaction with the 2-party system as demonstrated by 400,000 NAVs in Oregon, 100,000 minor party members, and generally lower levels of party identification by younger voters. So all of the major and minor parties must constantly renew or lose significance.

Don’t you think that if Oregon had a Nevada-style “none of the above” ballot line (which we adopted and included for informational purposes in Independent Party ballots) that the NOTA protest vote would be very high as well?

Here was our FAQ
What Does “None of the Above” Mean?
Choosing “None of the Above” on the contest for a race means you do not believe the Independent Party should nominate any of the persons whose names appear on the ballot and that you do not have a write-in choice.”None of the Above” is a voter preference currently available in Nevada primary and general elections. “None of the Above” cannot “win” an election–the candidate with the highest number of votes cast will be declared the winner. However, the number of “None of the Above” votes will tend to show voter dissatisfaction and is an alert to the winning candidate.

Of course this is a “primary election” because it a membership wide election contest which produces binding results for nominating candidates who proceed to the General Election. A primary election precedes a General Election. What’s your problem with this accurate terminology? What would you prefer, some made up name voters would not recognize as an opportunity to vote on nominees?

I still do not see any constructive options or comments pertinent to including minor parties and NAVs in any process.

As I said, actually citing the law to you would be fruitless. It is generally in ORS ch 248.

Oregon Primary: filiing deadline mid-March
Independent Party applications:online for almost a year, deadline June 2, reminder notices sent in March to legislative caucuses and leaders and campaigns, reminders through earned media, website

Or primary voter registration cutoff–21 days prior to election
Independent Party primary election 28 days prior to election (to allow sending voter files to vendor for generation of unique passcodes, preparation of mailing, and prevent party switching by partisans changing party registration solely to vote again for the cross-nomination of their partisan primary winner in the e-vote).

Or primary ballot security when in hands of elector: none
Audit trail for Oregon primary ballots: none in most cases

Oregon primary elections software: only minimal standardization, each county buys its own, some vendor products better than others
Independent Party primary software: tested and used many times previously

Observation of Oregon primary ballot counting: varies by County, but observers cannot see and compare signatures on VRC to “secrecy” envelopes
Independent Party Primary: public decyrption witnesses by Multnomah and Clackamas County election officers, at least 2 members of press

Or primary ballot system costs: printing, mailing, tallying completely paid for by the state
Indpependent Party primary: bupkes from state or taxpayers

Oregon primary system voter information: Voter Pamphlet heavily subsidized by state for printing, mailing; candidate outreach
Independent Party primary–no state support for any Voters Pamphlet, all media earned, mail notices at party expense (54000 pieces), candidate websites accessed directly from the ballot, over 120,000 additional pieces of literature sent by candidates, campaign follow up phone calls in many races.

You just made my point. You made up your own rules for the IPO nominating process and then slapped the “primary” label on it. You don’t even fit the definition of a closed primary, where only party members participate as candidates and voters. You have an open primary for candidates and a closed primary for voters — sort of a hybrid system that is not really either one.

Is it true that passcodes were sent to potential voters on postcards, where they could be read by prying eyes? How do you know the identity of your participants under those circumstances?

BTW, what official body did the testing and certification of the software used by IPO on this nominating process? Certainly not the SOS office nor the EAC, the only bodies with the authority to approve software that I know of. E1C has not submitted their system to the EAC for certification and testing so you must not be interested in outside validation — just believe whatever the company marketing folks say. Do you take the word of a Wall Street slickster that everything’s OK with the economy? Or BP spokespeople that they’ve got everything under control in the Gulf? Are you really that gullible?

What is public decryption? — watching some E1C employee fiddle with a couple of laptops, as described by Jeff Mapes? Not the equivalent of the public test required by Oregon law for regular Primary, Special and General Elections. Have you spent any time observing in elections offices during an election? Have you watched the signature verification, the scanning of ballots as they are checked in, the inspection of each ballot by the Election Boards?

No, I still hold to my position that what the IPO has created by its adhoc-ery is not actually a primary, but more closely resembling an online convention — and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise.

Well now your argument has reached the ultiimate in circularity (1) the Independent Party primary process did not follow inapplicable law set out for the major parties’ state sponsored election, and in the absence of statutes (2) the Party promulgated rules ahead of time (for comment by the candidates) closely following state law in order to be less confusing, but (3) those are just “ad hoc” rules we “made up.” No rules applied to us and we cannot set rules. We should just shut up and go away like a “good” minor party. Then any candidate we select will just be some “spoiler” elected by a handful of delegates. Can’t win.

Your concept of a primary is idiosyncatic. Both candidates and electors can be drawn from any cohort. (1) Even major party primaries need not be closed to registered members, and occasionally the Oregon Dems have allowed NAVs to vote in their primary, so the closed nature of the major party primaries is a self-imposed rule, not a “law.” (2) As for candidates, while statute requires that candidates who file for the Democratic and Republican primaries have been members of their respective parties for 180 days, anyone can (and often does in each election cycle) win the “closed” primary by write-in and those write-in winners are almost always a member of the opposing major party.

You could never have fusion voting and cross-nominations at all if every candidate had to be a member of the minor party in order to compete. The “law” allowing multiple party nominations for the same individual has been in place since statehood. See, ORS 254.135 for some of the permutations of possible candidates and party membership.

Candidates often appeared on Oregon ballots thru the 1950s with multiple party nominations after their names.

What is decryption? We sent out press releases and hundreds of invitations to attend the process. Too busy to come or didn’t care? Not interested in learning anything?

“Have you spent any time observing in elections offices during an election? Have you watched the signature verification, the scanning of ballots as they are checked in, the inspection of each ballot by the Election Boards?”

Yes, many times over the past 30 years. That is why I can say with certainty the process is not uniform in the different elections offices, you cannot see or challenge the comparison of the VRC screen to the signature on the secrecy envelope, and the clerks take a few seconds to do a signature comparison which an expert forensic handwriting expert would not attempt since the handwriting exemplars are inadequate. The process is filled with “good enoughs” and weaknesses.

You cannot make your case against the system we used by relying upon the accuracy, validity or verification of the various “private” software vendors the state uses, the haphazard signature verification process, the misdelivery of mail and fake addresses used for vote-by-mail, or the random and inadequate audit process. All our elections systems are fragile and insecure.

The passcodes system has been described in detail in numerous places online. A voter could not vote merely by entering the code, but must provide additional information. Use of that information to vote a passcode of another would be an class C felony in Oregon (5 years jail or $125,000 fine). We did the best we could with modest resources. We’ll do better in the future. We will do better by learning and adapting, not by listening to your carping about something you are determined to disparage.

You continue to bash a robust attempt to include all Independent Party voters in an ongoing civic experiment while your real point is that you really don’t like fusion voting,. disparage any effort to make minor party elections more inclusive than the poorly attended conventions, offer no real alternative except some reference to open source software (which hardly meets the exacting standards you now want to impose) and cavial about a “primary.” Go to any basic political science text or ordinary dictionary–a primary is an election which selects candidates for a following general election.

Not to let the facts get it the way of an anonymous bloggers ridiculous, ill-informed arguments, but the software developed by Everyone counts is subject to code review on request, and the software platforms it runs on are entirely open sourced.

So — the software created by E1C and “trusted” but not “verified” by IPO has not undergone the kind of public testing that the EAC performs. Have you yourselves done a code review? How do you know that the count is correct? David Dill, founder of Verified Voting and himself an eminent computer scientist says that it is difficult to do encryption right but that there are lots of ways to do it wrong. So trusting in uncertified untested software and claims of robust encryption is all you’ve got to stand on. Saying other states/organization use it is no defense, since some of those states also place their trust in paperless DREs that have no way of being recounted. That is not the Oregon way of elections. Two wrongs do not make a right so following the herd is no defense.

Sal and I have identified ourselves by name. We are out there putting our reputations and credentials out for review and critique. We welcome informed discussion. There does not appear to be much reason to continue the discussion with a nameless person who will not state their credentials, experience, real biases or bases for opinions. There is no “argument” despite how argumentative you choose to be.

If you had cared to look at the rest of my blog, you would have seen that I have created a substantial body of work on elections issues. I have previously written about internet voting so my biases and opinions have been made clear on that issue. My work speaks for itself.

If you thought you were able to find fault with my argument, you would be critiquing it. That you are not doing so says volumes about the cogency of my argument. That you have been reduced to attacking my expertise and completely ignoring the content of my argument tells me that you are out of intellectual gas.

However, the facts are on my side — and you have demonstrated ignorance of some of the most basic issues about internet voting, including software testing. For instance, code review is just one piece of software testing, as any quality assurance person will be quick to explain to you. When the California Secretary of State did a Top to Bottom review of software used in that state’s elections, the testing included not only code review but also extensive simulations of election day operations under various conditions and Red Team attacks. That is what real software testing looks like.

Facts are inconvenient things when they don’t support your position, so you have shifted to a personal attack. Show me where my facts are wrong. That’s all I expect of rational discussion. Otherwise concede gracefully.

I realize that I’m posting this more than two months after the fact–but I just read this post and the comments. I’m not an Oregon resident and my knowledge of this particular topic is limited–other than to say that I DO agree with Blue Banshee about the need for public testing and proper certification of voting software. I also agree that, by your own account, you haven’t addressed her main points and instead have given a litany of excuses for accepting less than stellar standards in conducting your “primary.”

But because your “argument” has devolved into ad hominem attacks against BB, I want to make a secondary point here.

1. Thank God for anonymous bloggers! Who else is going to have the courage to stand up and speak truth to the many powerful interests in this country, interests that can destroy someone’s reputation, their ability to make a living, or even their life under some circumstances. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, wisely, that anonymous bloggers should receive strong protection from exposure:

“…anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent…the right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.

We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously. The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all.”

For you to demand that bluebanshee reveal herself is misguided at best and shows your ignorance of the measures that are required to keep a democracy strong and vibrant.

2. Because of your personal attacks, I feel I need to add the following (though I’m sure BB has no need of any defense from me). I personally have known bluebanshee for decades. S/he is extremely knowledgeable about voting issues and is a force to reckon with on the political scene–an activist whose integrity is unquestionable. BB’s expertise on voting issues is unquestionable in many circles.

After reading this little mudsling fest, I think I just remembered what discouraged me to even vote in the first place. Especially if my e-vote,while beirng the only option for me, personally, is not really a valid(or secure, really)vote, according to bluebanshee, whose “expertise on voting issues is unquestionable in many circles.” Thanks to BB, I’m convinced not to even bother now.